Seeking Indigenous Ways for Enriching and Revitalizing Art Foundations in Pakistan

This paper will present research on local ways of enriching arts foundation curriculum and teaching in foundation programs in Pakistan. This study follows a funded national study conducted recently by the author, which documented arts foundation programs at 14 institutes across Pakistan. While Pakistan has a rich history of college level studio art education, its educational structures and content have increasingly evolved from Western counterparts. The Bauhaus model of the foundation was introduced in various iterations by both Westerners and Pakistanis educated abroad who came to occupy prominent roles in shaping the identities of the oldest art schools in Pakistan over the last 70 years. One of the findings of the national study suggests that a more or less singular model for foundations exists in varying degrees of reification at all the art schools studied, focusing on “skill development.” This is justified by many of the teachers interviewed as being determined by the cultural as well as intellectual diversity of the student body due to their schooling systems, which necessitates bringing students to the “same level.” The researcher felt that further investigation was needed to determine local epistemologies and teaching methods used by faculty who were open to moving beyond a skill/concept dichotomy while honoring student diversity and local ways of knowing. Phenomenological interviews with teachers and student and alumni participants, as well as an analysis of student work are underway for this purpose at five institutes, three of which were studied earlier.